A digital image may be represented in an output-device space, such as display RGB, or in a capture-device space, such as camera RGB, or in a device-independent space, such as CIE tristimulus space XYZ. The relative luminance values of all pixels in the image determine the tone properties of the image.
Tone mapping is performed to bring the overall brightness of a digitally captured image to a level that is pleasing to the human eye when the image is displayed. This is especially important for images that are under-exposed or over-exposed. Tone mapping is frequently performed with a “tone curve” that maps the original digital levels to new ones. The same tone curve is applied to all color channels independently. The tone mapping is simple and fast, and it does not introduce out-of-gamut colors. However, applying tone mapping curves to different color channels independently can introduce color distortions for some images since the values of different color channels are remapped to new values independently of each other. As a result, the chromaticity of individual pixels can change.
Accordingly, there is a need to improve image tone properties without changing the chromaticity of the pixels.